


Meet me on the battlefield

by Elisexyz



Series: Battlefield [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Injury, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 05:04:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14537286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: “I am not joining your Nazi empire,” she remarks, just in case it wasn’t clear enough. “I’d rather die.”“You arenotgonna die,” he immediately stresses, and, in the face of what looks like genuine panic at the thought, Jemma can’t really blame herself or anyone else on her team for falling for his act. Evennowthat she knows she can’t see through it. “And that’s not why I’m helping.”





	Meet me on the battlefield

**Author's Note:**

> For the Tumblr prompt: [“Stop complaining. I’m trying to save your life.” + Biospecialist](http://heytheredeann.tumblr.com/post/173582651294/biospec-prompt-stop-complaining-im-trying-to).

“ _Stop_ complaining. I’m trying to save your life.”

Yes, sure, as if she could actually _believe_ it. The bullet wound in her leg doesn’t allow her to attempt to run, so the best that she can do is trying to crawl away from Ward, who is beginning to sound a bit pissed off under the worried façade.

To his credit, whatever the reason for wanting to appear friendly, he’s really committed to it: the Hydra agents dead on the ground around them are his doing, even though they are supposed to be his buddies, and so far the most harmful thing that he’s done is intensifying her pain by trying to stop the bleeding.

Still, the blood loss hasn’t made her fuzzy enough to forget what kind of person she’s dealing with.

“I don’t really believe you,” she spits out, and the pain makes her sound even more aggressive than she intended. Good.

“I’m trying to _help_ —” he stresses. He’s crutched down in front of her and whenever she moves an _inch_ away from him he follows, hand steady on her wound. Jemma has no idea how bad it is, if the bullet hit just flesh or if she’s about to bleed out because of a severed artery or if maybe it hit the bone instead— right now, she only knows that she’s in a great deal of pain, she can’t get up on her own and the only offer of help available is coming from Grant Ward, which means that she’ll most likely turn up dead or captured if she accepts.

Bleeding out on the floor it is, then.

“I don’t _want_ your help,” she says, managing a weak shove at him as she tries to slip away, moved by sheer force of will.

“Dammit, Simmons— will you _stop_ moving?” he protests, exasperated, applying more pressure and subsequently forcing her to bite her lip to not let out a scream.

“Get away from me,” she says, not for the first time, her voice barely a pained hiss. Once again, he doesn’t comply.

“Let me help you, then I’ll be out of your face,” he bargains. Maybe he’s hoping that being wounded has turned her into a complete fool.

“Sure,” she scoffs, looking over his shoulder in the hopes that _someone_ will come for her— someone that she knows to be on her side, preferably. After what Ward pulled, there aren’t many people that she’s sure would never harm her anymore.

“I am not joining your Nazi empire,” she remarks, just in case it wasn’t clear enough. “I’d rather die.”

“You are _not_ gonna die,” he immediately stresses, and, in the face of what looks like genuine panic at the thought, Jemma can’t really blame herself or anyone else on her team for falling for his act. Even _now_ that she knows she can’t see through it. “And that’s not why I’m helping.”

“Then what do you want with me? Because I’m not working for you, _ever_ ,” she says, and breathing through the pain comes a bit more difficult the more she goes on, but at least fighting him offers a distraction.

“I just want you to get out of this in one piece,” he replies, staring at her with huge earnest eyes that remind Jemma of the effect that this close proximity would have had on her a week ago. Her heart still skips a beat, because apparently it hasn’t registered with it yet that she’s not allowed to consider him anything short of disgusting anymore.

“I don’t believe you,” she spells out, punctuating each word and taking a deep breath before trying to use her arms to pull away from him. She should try to crawl away, or— at least, she can try to make him remove his hand and let her bleed out right there. They won’t use her for whatever it is that they need her.

“ _Dammit_ —” he hisses, grabbing her arm to pull her back and hold her in place against the wall. The whole thing causes a fresh wave of pain to wash through her, and this time she can’t hold back a moan. “Come on, just stay _still_ , I’m trying to help here—”

“Why?” she spits out, glaring at him through the tears forming in her eyes. “What do you need me for?”

“It’s not like that—”

“Then how is it like, exactly?”

He hesitates a moment before shaking his head and stating: “I’m your soulmate.”

Jemma blinks. Her first thought is that she’s hearing things due to her injury. Her second hypothesis is that he’s trying to manipulate her – and that is, given recent events, far more likely.

“You are lying,” she states, feeling a deep sense of outrage at him trying to insert himself in her life like that, to _steal_ such an important title.

“I really am not,” he says, the ghost of a humourless smile on his face. “I’d show you my mark, but this doesn’t seem like the best time to take my pants off.” A pause. “Although I’m not opposed to stuff like that. Later,” he adds, and his light tone and easy-going grin suggest that he’s trying to lighten the mood, but Jemma isn’t really listening anymore.

She’s too busy thinking about how this actually— kind of makes sense.

The soulmate bond only goes one way: typically, both parties feel a deep affection and connection since their first encounter, but only one of them is fated to live with the crippling need for the other person, recognizing them upon meeting them without having to see a matching mark.

Now, Jemma may have had a crush on him, but she doesn’t _need_ him like that. This would mean that if he is telling the truth, which is a possibility that her mind started exploring without her permission, _he_ is the one bound to _her_.

This would explain why he’s trying to help her. This would explain why he seemed to be always hovering around the lab. It would explain the way he seemed to be soft around her and all the casual touches – things that at first she attributed at her own perceptions screwed by her hopeless crush, then at him playing her.

It would explain why he jumped out of a plane for her, trying to save her life with no guarantee for a working anti-serum or that he wouldn’t get infected as well in the process. In light of his true allegiance, that doesn’t make much sense.

Unless…

“This is better,” he comments, smiling encouragingly at her, because as she thought it over she forgot to try and escape.

“What about Skye?” she finds herself asking, desperate for a hole in this new theory. It was obvious that there was _something_ between them, and Jemma remembers quite clearly being jealous of it.

Ward shrugs. “It was strategic,” he states. The outrage at the way in which he casually admitted to playing with Skye’s feelings must show on her face, because he immediately tries to amend: “I was trying to protect you. I needed to cover up that you are this important to me, or— it would have been dangerous for you, you understand?”

“I understand that you are a liar and a traitor, and _this_ doesn’t change anything,” she spits out, and for a second she has to wonder if the hurt on his face is fake. Does it physically hurt, being rejected by your soulmate? She knows that she could hardly breathe when she spelled out for everybody that Ward was a traitor.

“Does it change enough that you’ll stop fighting and let me help?” he tries.

The answer is immediate. “No.”

“I can’t let you die,” he says, gently.

“I’ll keep trying to get away from you until I pass out,” she retorts, even if she feels dizzy and tired and she’s hurting all over both physically and emotionally, because everyone hopes to meet their soulmate someday and somehow she _knows_ that he’s telling the truth and that her story is an horrible tragedy.

He sighs. “Okay, then,” he states. Jemma doesn’t have the time to ask for a clarification before he’s moved towards her right side, sliding one arm around her waist and the other below her legs.

“Ward—”

“Sorry, this will hurt a bit,” he warns, before lifting her up as if she weighted nothing. She cries out in pain, instinctively reaching for his neck to find some stability as the whole world shifts around her. “I know, I know, I’m sorry.”

“What are you _doing_?” she asks, her voice quivering and her eyes filled with tears. She’s still holding onto his neck, and she’s not sure if it’s because she’s given up or because she’s hoping that breathing will come easier if she stays still for a while.

“Taking you to your team, obviously,” he states. He may present it as if it was the most natural conclusion in the world, but Jemma can’t seem to make sense of it. “As a sign of good faith,” he adds, which makes it click: he’s trying to win her back. She highly doubts that he’ll ever accomplish that after everything, but— maybe she can see how all this plays out. If he’s not lying, why waste energy fighting? She has no other way to get back to her team.

If he’s taking her to Hydra instead— she can always try to escape later. She doesn’t have the _energy_ to fight him right now.

And the truth is that there’s something in her that desperately and foolishly wants to hold onto the hope that he actually cares and that they can still come back from this – that she hasn’t lost the only soulmate that she’ll ever have.

“They’ll shoot you in the head immediately,” she comments, the words slipping out slurred as she finally relaxes against him, letting her head rest against his shoulder.

He scoffs. “Let’s hope not.”


End file.
